The Prosecutor's Path
by GennyWrites57
Summary: In the aftermath of his acquittal for the murder of Robert Hammond, Miles Edgeworth finds himself feeling adrift, without an identity in his work or his personal life. When Manfred von Karma's execution brings him back into contact with Franziska, the two of them head back to their old home in Germany to settle her father's will, revisiting painful old memories along the way.
1. Prologue

_**Prologue**_

_**February 2017**_

* * *

The Detention Center had never before been someplace one might consider welcoming, but after being on the other side of those thick glass windows himself, Miles Edgeworth had to concede that this entire building seemed to have an even more austere look to it than ever. There was a frigidity in the air here that felt as if it could seep through his skin, settling in all the way through to his bones. All throughout the harrowing month that this past December had turned out to be, his nightmares of a dark elevator and a chilling scream had been interspersed with equally frightening ones about living out the rest of his days here, about being sent to death row for the murder of Robert Hammond. Edgeworth hated how familiar this entire place was to him, how the dim lighting and the general air of hopelessness washed over him as he walked down these halls and made him feel as though he were reuniting with an old friend.

Inside these walls, there was . . . _simplicity_. The one thing that his newfound freedom couldn't give him.

He hadn't dared mention to anybody that he didn't have the slightest clue where to go from here now that he'd been acquitted of not one, but two murders. After having spent so much of his adult life blaming himself for his own father's death, he'd be lying if he said that some part of him didn't feel empty now that he didn't have that part of his identity to cling to. His own crushing guilt had played a significant role in informing his decision to become a prosecutor rather than a defense attorney in the first place. He'd done so in an attempt to punish himself, to distance himself from the version of Miles Edgeworth that might as well have perished right along with his father in the elevator all those years ago. Everything — his hatred for defense attorneys, his desperate adherence to Manfred von Karma's dogmatic courtroom tactics — had sprung from his own self-loathing, from the very things that Phoenix Wright had disproven in court.

But what now? If he wasn't Miles Edgeworth, the Demon Prosecutor, then who _was_ he?

Perhaps all this time, all he'd been doing was simply running away from the man that really lurked underneath all the courtroom posturing and bravado. He hadn't necessarily ever doubted that he could be better, could make anything more of himself than the ice-cold, calculating man that everyone else saw; he simply hadn't _allowed_ himself to believe it. Most importantly, he hadn't even dared think that he might even be _deserving_ of such a redemption. When he looked around at this place, too prideful to even allow himself to make eye contact with the exhausted prisoners staring back at him from their cells, he shuddered to think how many people he had sent here with his own ruthless tactics. And many of them, in all likelihood, were innocent all along; they simply had the misfortune of crossing paths with a man with so much bitterness in his heart.

What was the point of being acquitted for the murder of Gregory Edgeworth when he knew that his father would be disgusted with the way he'd acted?

In the months following the end of the Robert Hammond trial, many involved with the case — not the least of which being Phoenix Wright, who had done his best to check in with him regularly ever since (as though he thought Edgeworth were a child in need of babying) — had tried to convince him to have a cheerier outlook. And, to Edgeworth's own credit, he'd done a good job of appearing just as composed and forward-moving as ever. Even Wright, who knew him perhaps better than anybody else, hadn't truly seemed to notice just how deep his self-doubts now ran. True, he supposed those people were right when they said that he shouldn't blame himself for losing his way. Manfred von Karma had appeared in his life at just the wrong time, after all, when he was a traumatized child, still malleable, his worldview informed by the terrible things that he'd been through. Heartbreak like that had been prime brewing ground for von Karma to radicalize him, turn him into a shell of his former self.

_You were just a kid back then_, Phoenix had often told him whenever they'd dared broach the subject together. _It's not your fault, Edgeworth_.

And yet.

Miles sighed, hoping it wasn't terribly obvious as he gave his head a shake, as if the action might shake those troubling thoughts free from his mind. He set his jaw stubbornly and slid his left hand into the sleek woolen pocket of his pants, pointedly keeping his gaze fixed forward as he continued the seemingly endless walk through the Detention Center hallways. Not for the first time over the past few months, he firmly told himself not to dwell on such things. Today of all days, though, he supposed it would be even more difficult than usual to keep thoughts of DL-6, of a boat in the middle of a lake on a freezing Christmas night, out of his brain.

It would be his first time coming face-to-face with Manfred von Karma since that fateful day in court two months ago . . . as well as the last time that he would ever see Manfred von Karma ever again.

They'd been surprisingly expeditious over here about getting the legendary prosecutor an early execution date. That fact alone had originally come as a shock to Miles, who knew for a fact just how many people had been sent to death row — some, ironically enough, by Manfred von Karma's own hand. It had something to do, he suspected, with the severity of von Karma's crimes, as well as the fact that the statute of limitations on DL-6 had now run out. Perhaps there simply hadn't been enough money to keep him here for long; perhaps there were plenty of people working here with old grudges to settle, who simply wanted to see von Karma gone as soon as possible. Whatever the reason, his execution date had come up with a swiftness that Edgeworth hadn't anticipated.

Nor, if he were being honest, had he anticipated being here to begin with. As far as he was concerned, if he never again looked into the eyes of the man who had murdered his father, it would be too soon. But he'd received a call about a week ago — an international number, so of course he'd immediately known who it was. She'd wanted company, though of course her pride would never have allowed her to tell him that. _Don't you think it's right of you to show up, Miles Edgeworth?_ she'd snapped at him, just as waspish as ever, even over the phone. _All those years my papa fed you, housed you, educated you, it's the least you could do to be here and . . . and see everything settled_.

And he wasn't sure why, but he'd felt moved by the pitiful, unspeakable loneliness he'd heard in her voice.

So here he was today, joining her.

He found her in a chilly room at the end of the hall, when the silent but imposing prison guard striding along at his side had moved to open a heavy metal door for him. Edgeworth walked through the doorway, taking in the scene before him and allowing his eyes to adjust — somehow, this room seemed even more morosely-lit than the rest of the entire Detention Center. Sure enough, Franziska von Karma sat waiting for him at a table in the middle of the room, cutting as powerful a silhouette as she could manage from where she practically doubled over in the hard-backed metal chair. In between her hands where they rested on the table, there was a paper cup of what appeared to be tepid black coffee. Her face seemed pinched and pale in the harsh, unforgiving light of the single bulb that shone from overhead — the sterile sort of lighting that seemed to sap the entire room of any color or life. There were dark shadows under her eyes, not quite hidden despite her attempt to cover them with makeup, that hinted at a lack of sleep. When her gaze swiveled up to meet his at last, those familiar, intelligent eyes were hollow.

"Hmph," she groused by way of greeting, a hoarseness in her voice that he hadn't expected. "Good of you to show up at last, Miles Edgeworth. I wondered whether or not you would deign to show your face here."

"Franziska," he said with a curt nod of his own. Perhaps, on any other day, her biting words would have elicited a smug little smile from him, perhaps barbed words of his own to return to her, but he refused to rise to her ceaseless baiting him today. Especially when part of him suspected that there was far more going on beneath the surface than she cared to let on. "My apologies. As we agreed to meet here only a matter of days ago, it has been difficult for me to arrange my schedule around this. I was as prompt as could be, given the circumstances." In any case, another, more _immature_ part of him knew that such smooth, unshakeable confidence, such a lack of reaction to her at all, would infuriate her far more than anything else.

She narrowed her eyes, her expression somehow thoughtful and venomous all at once. "Yes, well . . . the sooner we can get this over with, the better," she spat. "I grow wearier every second I am made to spend in this pathetic excuse for a country." Yet, for all her vitriol, she couldn't quite disguise the immeasurable pain in her voice, all over her face.

Her grief was too raw, too close, and it left Miles at a total loss.

Much as he wanted in that moment to give her a genuine apology, to approach her with some level of vulnerability and to let her know that the loss of a parent — however toxic a presence they might have been in one's life — was never easy, his foolish pride would not allow it. He swallowed those words of kindness just as he had for every year of his life since DL-6, and they burned the entire way down. It was all he could do to keep his steady gaze trained on her, to at least have the decency not to look away from the emotion she had tried so desperately (and failed) to hide. He hated it, because he had no idea what to do with it, and loathed nothing more than feeling as if he were not in control of his circumstances, as if he didn't have the answers he needed.

And most of all, he hated it because it reminded him too much of himself.

Edgeworth had to admit, he was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic here in this country, as well. Nothing but unhappy memories seemed to surround him on all sides, and even where there were bright patches interspersed between the suffering, there were all these curious — however well-meaning — faces and voices, crowding him, worrying over him, watching for what he might do next. It was suffocating, infantilizing. He'd almost preferred that self-imposed isolation he'd bestowed upon himself as the Demon Prosecutor incarnate; an island of his own making, where no one could reach him, where no one had _cared_ enough to reach him. That, he supposed, was the burden behind such an immeasurable blessing as companionship. Caring was hard, investing in others was deeply complicated and at times frightening, and though he was glad to have reunited with his old friends and left behind the ways he'd once known, the allure of that loneliness sometimes beckoned to him even still.

"Have you been here for very long, then?" he asked, wanting to steer the conversation away from that deep dark he sensed within her that he had no interest in exploring. "I had only received word of your arrival from Berlin yesterday. I assume that after today, you'll be returning promptly."

Franziska's mouth, already leeched of color from stress, pressed into a hard, thin line that rendered it white. "I _did_ only arrive yesterday," she said, though the snippishness in her tone was halfhearted at best. "Every second spent here is more like an hour, I should think, surrounded by such foolish fools as these _Americans_." In her mouth, the word was almost a curse. "I have every intention of returning home to Germany tomorrow. There are . . . several of Papa's affairs which yet require my attention back home."

"You mean his will," said Edgeworth, in a manner that didn't suggest any sort of question despite it only being a guess.

To this, Franziska's response was a rueful, bitter smirk, a ghost of its usual arrogant courtroom appearance. With a pained, hollow chuckle, she said, "Manfred von Karma was a man rife with delusions of grandeur, it would seem. He left so little behind in the event of his demise that you would think he had almost assumed he would never die at all."

He couldn't help but notice that, although the execution had yet to occur, Franziska was already speaking of her father in the past tense. Perhaps there was less love there between the two of them that he had always assumed growing up in that cold, calculated household together.

"And you intend to sort all of this business out on your own?"

As it would turn out, though, Miles Edgeworth was denied the chance to hear the answer to that question. No sooner had the sentence finished leaving his parted lips than did the metal door swing open once again. Two more uniformed guards entered the room, one joining the first already stationed at the door. The other, who seemed to carry with him a certain air of authority that the other two lacked, strode up to Edgeworth and Franziska, and announced that it was time for them to be led into the witness room.

It was as though a cold hand wrapped in a wet cloth had clutched itself tight around the inside of Edgeworth's gut. How many autopsy reports had he pored over in his years as a prosecutor, how many gruesome murder scenes had he studied intently for every last clue, and never once felt even the slightest queasiness in response? Only now did his legs seem strangely gelatinous beneath him, the lunch he'd eaten hours earlier uncomfortably close to his throat, his mouth watery in the way that almost always signals vomit. There was no part of him that cared any for what fate ultimately befell Manfred von Karma — as far as Miles was concerned, the man could rot for the intricate ways in which he'd managed to subtly and carefully ruin Edgeworth's life for fifteen long years. All the same . . . DL-6 was over now, and Miles was tired, _so_ tired, of seeing all this death surrounding that accursed case.

They were ushered quickly and quietly into the witness room, which was all off-white walls and sallow, feeble lighting. There were three small rows of hard-backed plastic chairs that one might see in a classroom, all turned facing a single square window the length of the far wall. This window, the officer informed them — despite the fact that Edgeworth and Franziska most certainly knew this already, from their years in the legal system — was one-way. They could see into the room where the execution would take place, a sterile, hospital-looking room that looked strangely ordinary for the purpose it served, but Manfred von Karma would not be able to see them. There was a curtain along the length of the mirror that would be drawn back when appropriate; Edgeworth almost wanted to give a dark laugh at the irony of it, but his stomach gave a cold, nervous roll inside him, and he clamped tight on his jaw to keep from splattering the contents of his lunch all over his and Franziska's shoes.

He wasn't sure whether the entire messy ordeal took minutes or hours to carry out. In that chilly, impossibly tiny room, time seemed stretched and untraceable, every second hanging in the air and taking its sweet time before waltzing away into the breeze. He had the oddest sensation of being locked in some sort of purgatory, forever sitting in that uncomfortable plastic chair with screws digging into his pelvis, focusing his entire concentration on that annoying little pain because it was better than acknowledging the fact that the world as he knew it had been crumbling, folding in around him ever since December 25th, 2016. Behind that mirror was the man he'd hated, the man who had killed his father, but also the man he'd wanted so desperately to prove himself to, the man he'd at first resented, but then eventually believed.

Yes, as much as Miles Edgeworth hated to admit it to himself, he had actually _believed_ in the things von Karma had taught him.

And now who was he, now that all of that was proven to be a lie, now that the entire reason he'd become a prosecutor in the first place was a lie?

There was a shortness in Edgeworth's chest, an electric sort of tingling in his muscles — he found himself tightly clenching his hands into fists in his lap to keep them still, to keep himself from letting out the sudden restless energy that had seized him. And now the room seemed all at once too big and too small, too tight, and the floor seemed to sway dizzily beneath him — and there was a roaring in his ears that he couldn't tell was his own pulse or

(_an earthquake oh my god it's an earthquake no not here not now_)

But it _couldn't_ be an earthquake, because Franziska sat so still beside him, because the rest of the world seemed to be continuing to turn on as normal. Because time seemed to be going too slow and too fast all at once, everything a blur of that dull white paint on the walls and floors. Edgeworth swallowed hard, did his best to calm his breathing as inconspicuously as possible, but it was like trying to quell a frightened horse already speeding too fast over a hurdle. Sweat broke out along the back of his neck, the wool of his jacket and cravat heavy and itchy against his skin. He found himself gripped with the instinct to run, to get out of here —

—but of course, Miles Edgeworth kept himself anchored in that chair, through every excruciating second, until it was all over.

When at last all was said and done, Miles couldn't have leapt any faster from his seat. Looking rather as though just sitting there had burned him, he jumped to his feet and rushed towards the exit, Franziska in tow, doing her best to keep her shock at his uncharacteristically flustered behavior from registering on her face.

Outside of the Detention Center, Edgeworth stood a short distance from the doorway, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking deep, slow, affirming gulps of the fresh air. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly, not even concerned with how disheveled he might appear — the good sense hadn't returned to him yet enough for him to be aware that he ought to be ashamed of his sprinting out of the room, or the erratic, uncontrollable shaking in his hands. Every extremity felt exhausted and limp, as though he'd gone for a good hour-long workout. And on a mental as well as physical level, he felt _drained_, completely spent from . . . whatever had just happened back there. It reminded him of those panicked spells he used to get whenever the hint of a tremor might rumble beneath his feet, or whenever he had to ride an elevator — but he hadn't had one that bad in a while.

_My chest still aches from it_, he thought with a grimace, an embarrassed flush rising to his cheeks (though at least some color was returning to his face, it would help him look less sickly.) _It was just like . . . just like one of my old nightmares._

"Miles Edgeworth."

Rendered a good deal jumpier than usual by his earlier incident, Edgeworth gave a start, turning to face Franziska where she stood a few feet behind him. He instantly hated the knowing look on her face — the same look he'd seen when they were children, the mornings after his particularly awful dreams of his father's death, when he'd lived back in Germany with her — and wished he could take back every second of vulnerability he had shown. Still, he made his best attempt at composing himself, never wanting to appear weak in front of a woman whose strength, he believed (though he would sooner die a thousand deaths than tell it to her) had no bounds.

"What happened back there?" It was not a question in her voice, but a demand. He'd seen that same demeanor command courtrooms, in a manner befitting a disciple of Manfred von Karma. She had always been more student than daughter to the man, perhaps. "You look positively ill. And don't even think about giving me some foolish half-baked story concocted by the mind of a prideful, dimwitted fool."

Again, there seemed to be so much that he wanted to say to her. A thousand apologies rushed immediately to his head, all clamoring to pour out of his mouth at once, but he yielded to none of them. Between himself and Franziska there had always been a wall of solid concrete, and he was in no rush now to start breaking it down. But the sight of her in that lonely little room in the Detention Center, the solitude he'd heard in her voice . . . not to mention the fact that he hardly felt as if he could stay here in America anymore, for every second he found himself crushed by the weight of yet another awful moment from his past . . .

What other conclusion was there to come to, really, than to run away? Run away from everything?

"I'm coming with you," he blurted.

Franziska didn't even bother to hide the flabbergasted look on her face. "Wh-what?"

"You're leaving for Berlin again tomorrow, are you not?" he clarified. And then, in a voice that warranted no argument, he added, "I wish to accompany you. I will make whatever arrangements are necessary on such short notice." _Just please see, Franziska — please understand that I need to do this._

_I need to get out of here once and for all._

And perhaps it was because she could clearly see the desperation written on his face after all, or perhaps it was because both of them had been wrung completely dry by the events of the past few months and needed to not be alone more than they might have realized . . .

But slowly, firmly, Franziska von Karma acquiesced and nodded her head.


	2. Chapter One: Shadows of Memory

_**Chapter One: Shadows of Memory**_

_****trigger warning; this chapter contains BRIEF mentions of implied s*icide ideation that could potentially be distressing. Proceed with caution if you need to, your mental health matters and you deserve to feel safe!**_

* * *

It was easier for Edgeworth to breathe the moment that the plane's wheels at last lifted from the ground.

Franziska sat to his right, her posture so stiff she might've been made of granite. Even her typically-domineering presence seemed a thousand miles away to him as he stared blankly out of the tiny porthole on his left. As the ground inched farther and farther away, that slithering darkness twining itself around his gut seemed to loosen its grip just the slightest bit. And when the runway had gone from a blurred streak of dirt right below the plane to completely invisible as it intermingled with a widening view of the jungle of buildings and roads beneath them, when at last they were distant enough from the world below that he no longer knew where Los Angeles began and ended, that ever-present feeling of foreboding faded entirely.

Or — not entirely. It simply felt as if it were . . . biding its time. A lion, curled up and resting in the farthest reaches of his mind, relaxing now, but poised to strike again when the moment was right.

Edgeworth's eyes narrowed as he continued staring through the window at nothing in particular. Long ago, he might have been compelled to notice how beautiful it was up here, how it boggled the mind to see so much of the planet laid out like carpet below you — but that would have been a different time, a different _person_ ago. A bitter smile almost touched the corners of his mouth; as a child, he'd never flown, not even when his father had been required to move around for work. Ray had always babysat him in those instances, and Miles had been left at home, itching with wonder at where Gregory Edgeworth could be, what it would be like to travel like that. And now, as an adult, it was simply part of the job. Yet another part of his life that had lost any sort of meaning.

When was the last time he had genuinely _felt_ something towards his work, towards anything in his life at all? Of all the myriads of questions that had hounded him, buzzed around in his mind like a hornet's nest ever since the Hammond trial, that was the one that hollowed him out the most.

He could, however, remember a certain person who had dredged up . . . something within him, though he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. And Edgeworth hated that more than anything else — the fact that he knew he owed everything to someone else, the fact that he'd been forced to grapple with his own foolish pride and lost everything he'd known to be true in the process. He despised that one person could have such power over him, could see right through him when no one else ever had.

He hated that, of all the people to have possibly made him feel anything, it was Phoenix Wright.

And, blast it all, why did his thoughts linger on the man even long after he'd boarded the plane and left the United States behind?

Something frighteningly close to guilt lanced through his chest at the thought of the state Wright would be in once he finally learned of what happened. In hindsight, part of Edgeworth wondered why he'd had the gall to leave the way he did — with nothing but a letter left on his office desk, left to be found by whomever happened to wander in after he'd already left. No other explanation, no parting words, just a plain, simple statement that he felt summed up everything quite succinctly.

_Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death_.

Franziska would have sneered at him for dramatics if she'd known his choice of words. She'd never been the sort of person to shy away from the blunt reality of things, never hidden behind pretty words to make things easier for herself or others. He supposed he ought to consider her brave for that, considering how often he used his own cleverness to disguise the bitter truth of his real feelings more often than not. But even she had obviously never been stranger to hyperbole, and in this case, he couldn't help but feel that the words he'd chosen were the best possible for the situation. Though he remained very much alive, some fundamental part of who he was — who he'd been all these years — had withered away with the closing of DL-6.

And if that part of him were dead, then what did it matter about the rest? What _was_ there left, after all that was gone?

In any case, some small, nagging voice in the back of his mind wondered if perhaps he'd chosen that phrasing for a reason. If _something_ deep down within him instinctually knew that, whatever his intentions in going to Berlin may have seemed to be on the outside, he had something altogether planned for himself in the end. Perhaps that part of him understood something that Miles Edgeworth would never allow himself to face — that he might eventually give up fighting these warring emotions, might grow so tired of the uncertainty that, in a moment of weakness . . .

_No_. He would not — _could_ not — allow himself to think that way. For better or for worse, even if this pathetic attempt at soul-searching earned him nothing in the end, he had to stay alive. Physically, anyway.

More than a little shaken by the morbid nature of his thoughts, as well as the suddenness with which they'd arrived in his head, Edgeworth suppressed the shudder that ran through him and turned his attention to the flickering television attached to the seat in front of him. An inane romantic comedy being shown for free across the plane — as if such a thing could be counted as _entertainment_ — but at least it provided a distraction for the remainder of the journey.

At his side, Franziska eyed him carefully, and he couldn't help but wonder if she saw right through the careful façade he still so desperately tried to uphold.

* * *

The manor loomed in the distance like a great white beast, a spiked dragon of pointed, twisting spires and ridiculously ornate towers that slumbered on the lush hillside that surrounded the estate, lording over all it surveyed. Fitting for a man like Manfred von Karma — Miles had always thought so. He could remember sitting in the passenger seat of the sleek black car that had first brought him here as a boy, peering through the window past the guarded front gates for the first time at what would be his home for the remainder of his childhood. Even now, that terror he'd first felt looking at that imposing silhouette it cut upon the horizon didn't feel all that distant in his past. Even Franziska seemed at a loss for words at the sight of it.

The chauffeur who had picked them up at the airport, a longtime member of the staff here, drove them through the gates with little fanfare. When at last they'd made it down the lengthy driveway and around to the front — an austere but open space of cobblestone and little squares of mulch that looked as if it might have wanted to be a garden, if the person who owned the property had actually cared for beautiful things — they clambered out of the vehicle and could only stare at the massive oak doors greeting them.

It was Miles who ventured for conversation first. "I must say, I . . . never imagined myself returning here."

"If words were enough, then my papa's memory of you alone would have kept you here," Franziska responded coolly. "After you left, his comparisons of my work to yours were _constant_. I heard your name so often that it was really as if you'd never gone anywhere at all."

The bitter edge to her voice didn't shock him — and perhaps that was what he felt guiltiest about. Growing up together, he'd been proud of the fact that he'd overshadowed Franziska in close to every subject, had craved Manfred von Karma's approval just as desperately as she. He'd believed that it _made_ him something — something other than the child who had mistakenly killed his own father. Only now did he see with increasingly distressing clarity that perhaps his "little sister" hadn't had as idyllic an existence here as he'd thought.

"None of that matters now, I suppose," was Edgeworth's admittedly flat response, all the words that he truly wanted to say — all the apologies, the genuine compliments he wanted to give her for how hard she'd worked — getting stuck in his throat on the way out. "You never did explain what business we have here — or how long it will take."

Franziska sighed. "Do you remember our family's creed, Miles Edgeworth?"

He almost laughed at that. No, he didn't think that he was likely to ever _forget_ it. The beginnings of a smirk touched the corners of his mouth. "To be totally perfect in every way," he recited smoothly, the words practically muscle memory by now. "That is what it means to be a von Karma. What does that have to do with anything, apart from your father's own hubris?"

Either she ignored the subtle jab or simply didn't care enough anymore to defend against it.

"My father wanted everything done perfectly, down to the last detail," she said, arms folded resolutely across her chest. "That did not stop with his death. Yesterday, I mentioned his . . . his will." She swallowed, blinking away the brief vulnerability that she didn't know Miles could see. "I did not lie when I told you that he left us nothing. Nothing physical anyway, nothing of any immediate value."

"But?" Miles prompted, an awful feeling of dread surging in the pit of his stomach.

Her mouth became a thin, impatient slash across her angular face. "It was his last wish that I come back here — that I be the one to handle old case files of his, and burn them. In the event that they should ever be discovered. I suppose he wanted any evidence of his illicit methods dealt with, before they could otherwise become exposed." A scoff punctuated her sentence. "Why should a von Karma care what is thought of them _after_ they die? It is what we do while we are _alive_ that matters. Foolish. He was better than that."

He supposed he could understand the anger and pain that laced her voice, the admiration mingled with disgust that didn't know entirely _what_ it wanted to be. It hit him like a sack of bricks to the face that he wasn't the only one here with conflicting views of Manfred von Karma; the man who'd given him shelter, taught him to seek revenge and hone his fury and desire for justice as a weapon, who'd given him the entire career that he had today, dually juxtaposed with the man who'd murdered his father in cold blood, just as a way to settle a petty courtroom grudge. Dizzying imagery, to say the least. He couldn't imagine how Franziska was feeling in the midst of it all — though she and Miles had both had their differences and certainly could barely stand to be around one another at times, the fact remained that they had grown up as siblings, had come to care for one another on some level. He knew her well enough to know that her loyalty to her family's name certainly wouldn't have extended to wanting to see Edgeworth's father dead.

That there were truly so many former cases of Manfred von Karma's to be "dealt with" in such a way didn't come as a surprise to Edgeworth in the slightest. Much as it now ashamed him to think of it, there had been many that von Karma had used as a teaching opportunity with both Miles and Franziska when they were still learning the ins and outs of becoming perfect prosecutors. Knowing that now, knowing that he hadn't for a moment so much as batted an eyelash at what the man had done . . .

"And what are you going to do?" Miles found himself asking, though he wasn't quite sure why. She'd come all this way — surely that meant she was going to follow through with what her father had asked of her. "Typical, that a dead man should have no qualms with asking his daughter to effectively become an accomplice and conceal evidence. I trust you need no cautioning, as I'm sure you've already thought of this, but if this should go poorly for you, Franziska —"

"Oh, spare me you and your performative concern, Miles Edgeworth —"

"—you will be _culpable_. And I'm afraid in that situation, there is very little I or anyone else could do to help you."

"I don't need your help, foolish fool, nor do I need you as a moral compass," Franziska spat. "Need I remind you that you are here at all only out of courtesy?"

After a beat, she strode briskly forward up the steps, towards the front doors. Edgeworth, with a long-suffering sigh through his nose, followed suit. Franziska swiftly punched in the security code (her fingers slamming against the buttons with such force that he felt certain she was imagining his face on every one) and with a twist of the knob, the right door yielded to her touch and swung to let them both in.

Inside, the foyer was every bit as grand as he remembered. The soaring ceiling sported a massive crystal chandelier — how many guilty verdicts had paid for that detail alone? he wondered — that cast sparkling diamonds of light across the smooth, cold marble floor. The walls were painted a subdued, sensible beige, the color interrupted every so often by large portraits of von Karma ancestors or descendants. There were no paintings purely for the sake of beauty; plenty of trophies displayed in glass cases, awards and accolades hung up and gathering cowbwebs, but nothing that served the purpose of simply decoration. Manfred von Karma hadn't been a man who cared for frivolity.

"You know where your old room was," Franziska said flatly, her voice resounding in the open space. "I suppose you can sleep there for the time being."

"Of course."

A beat of silence that seemed to last an eternity passed between them. Just when Edgeworth had resigned himself to ending the conversation and taking his luggage upstairs to his old bedroom, Franziska turned to face him, her facial expression thoughtful. Her eyes gleamed like a bird of prey's as she stared him down, determined to find _something_ there in his gaze; the intensity of it made him uncomfortable, though he didn't dare shift or squirm or otherwise give her the satisfaction of knowing such a thing.

"He didn't tell me where they are," she said at last, her voice stony, matter-of-fact. "The case files he wished me to retrieve, that is. All I know is that I will find the answers here."

Edgeworth blinked, utterly bemused. "But that's absurd," he said, too surprised to care how flabbergasted he sounded. "Why on earth would he go to all the labor of asking you to do such a thing as his last wish, only to send you on a wild goose chase? It makes no sense. Heaven knows how many case records there are scattered throughout not just this home, but police stations, his own office — _why?_"

Franziska arched an eyebrow. "You truly don't think it makes sense? Use your head, Miles Edgeworth. This _is_ my papa, right down to the last detail. There is _something_ he is purposefully withholding from me — from both of us — and this is the method through which I am to find what it is. He would never confess to me; he would want to ensure that I go to these lengths to figure it out on my own."

Because Manfred von Karma would have wanted to taunt, even from beyond the grave, would have wanted to constantly test his daughter's loyalty, make her prove herself to be a true von Karma. And knowing Franziska's vulnerability where that was concerned, he felt all too certain that she would fall for it, even if she realized what her father was doing in the first place.

"You said it yourself, Franziska," said Edgeworth. "The man is dead." He hated the way she flinched back ever so slightly from the harshness of his words, but he didn't dare balk from her, from the truth of the matter. "What would be the point in pursuing this at all? Why even give him the pleasure?"

For a moment, he saw that unshakable confidence flicker, but if he'd blinked, he would have missed it. In an instant, her usual carefully-crafted walls were back up again, her face a mask of frosty indifference. Her mouth curved into that familiar smug little smirk, and she said breezily, "Because I am a von Karma. And I leave no stone unturned."

* * *

He'd thought that with the closing of the Robert Hammond case, his nightmares about DL-6 would have left him be at last, too. But that night, perhaps simply because being in this place dredged up the absolute worst in him, the images he tried so hard to forget in the light of day came back in full force.

The inside of a cramped, cold elevator, the sound of cables screeching to a halt filling his ears. The lights flickering like the last few feeble heartbeats before a flatline, only to then wink out entirely, submerging him in total darkness. His father at his side — it was so real, always so real that it almost felt as if Gregory Edgeworth were there, standing right next to him, still drawing breath from the air. And then there were the desperate screams of Yanni Yogi rising to meet the steadily thickening air, the man's voice disjointed and increasingly hysterical. There was the thunk of the pistol landing at Miles' feet, the feel of it, heavy and metallic and icy, as he picked it up and clumsily threw it at Yogi. The bullet discharged, the smell of blood rent the air — and those screams — those horrible screams —

Miles Edgeworth was screaming himself as he woke to an unfamiliar bedroom, where even the air felt strange and stale. There was an atmosphere here, even under the cover of nighttime, that this place had never been lived in, never been a place that the person who occupied it could come to relax. The silk sheets slid under him as he pulled himself to a sitting position, still shaking, drenched in a cold sweat. Slowly but surely, his senses returned to him, that hazy sleep-induced veil over his mind lifting by the second. The details of the room came into sharper view — the desk pushed against the far wall, the bookshelf off to his right filled with legal textbooks and old notebooks, the bare walls — and he remembered that he was not at home, not trapped in America. He was here, back in Berlin, back in the place that he'd sworn he would never return to . . .

And though he didn't believe in such wooly things as fate, he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps his being here was more fortuitous than he'd realized. He had to stop Franziska — had to make sure that her father's crimes no longer went unknown, unnoticed. Even if it _was_ an exercise in futility, even if there was no punishment they could afford a dead man, no punishment that could ever possibly make up for the things von Karma had done . . .

He had to convince her not to hide them any longer. Perhaps this would be his chance to finally absolve himself of the very things he himself had kept hidden all these years.


	3. Chapter Two: Far Worse to Lose

_**Chapter Two: Far Worse to Lose**_

* * *

Franziska von Karma had awoken long before the dawn, and had no idea that just down the hall, her "little brother" lay awake in his own bed, fighting off the shadowy remnants of yet another nightmare. Indeed, her thoughts were in quite another place entirely as she strode quickly, quietly down the corridor and lingered for a moment outside the large oak door that had, for so long, blocked her out as a child. She'd never been allowed in here without express permission; even now, just standing here was enough to fill the pit of her stomach with such dread that it was difficult not to feel completely pathetic. Manfred von Karma's office was a place of punishment, of stern lectures bordering on threats, of every bad memory that had ever followed her around throughout her life like so many stubborn ghosts. She'd sworn when she'd left this place for good that she would never come back, especially not to this room in particular . . .

A chill rent the air, and Franziska barely suppressed a shudder. Though the sky outside remained deepest, velvety blue, it had just begun to lighten up at the edges of the horizon, promising a morning just as brisk and bitterly cold as the night had been. Of course, from inside the mansion, Franziska was forced to admit to herself that she doubted very seriously that the cold could have anything to do with the sudden shivers racking through her body.

_Ridiculous_, she sneered inwardly. _I am a von Karma — I do not fear anything. Least of all my own house_.

And yet a presence did seem to linger here, no matter how little stock she placed in such fairly tales as haunted houses and restless, angry spirits. Though, if there ever were a vengeful soul out there looking to torment the living even from beyond the grave, she supposed it would be her father. Manfred von Karma had never been the type to let any matter go easily. It would make all too much sense for that bulldog stubbornness to follow him into death.

Why had she chosen to come back? There was nothing but her own blood that kept her tethered to this place, and even that seemed to recoil and jump in her veins in protest at the sight of it. Being here now, especially with Miles Edgeworth in tow, it was hard to feel as if she were a real person anymore, anchored to anything; she kept feeling the strange, out of body sensation that she was little more than an apparition herself, an imprint, an echo of her former self wandering these halls and doomed to stay put here for eternity. She and Edgeworth were just as trapped within Manfred von Karma's web as they had ever been, still acting out the same roles he'd placed them so neatly into as children, helpless to break the cycle.

Franziska's mouth twisted into a bitter smile at that. Perhaps she didn't know how to break out of all this because she didn't even know how she truly felt about her father to begin with. Contempt and pride warred inside her over the memory of the same man, as if she were viewing her every encounter with him through a kaleidoscope, the images bent into new shapes and colors and dimensions from every angle. From one moment to the next, her opinion of him swung from respectful to hatred, and never seemed to run in a comfortable median. Perhaps she was the one who was truly broken after all, then, if she couldn't even make a decision about how to feel over the simplest thing. Franziska von Karma was nothing if not a woman who hated indecision and needless hemming and hawing.

For how much longer was she going to continue to allow her father's memory to intimidate her like this?

She sighed heavily, pushing out the breath in her lungs as if her need of it was an offense. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, ever a warrior heading into battle, she stepped forward and slowly pushed open the heavy doors to her father's old office.

And the search began.

* * *

When he could no longer tolerate lying in bed and pretending as though he were making any effort to get back to sleep, Miles Edgeworth at last sat up and wriggled out from beneath the heavy down bedsheets, glad to be free of their constricting heat in spite of the chill of the bedroom. He felt newly exhausted, drained in a way that he hadn't felt in months, his first DL-6 nightmare since the resolution of the Hammond trial having sapped all but the life out of him. Either he'd forgotten what that loss of sleep felt like, how it hit you and left you feeling as though you'd been crushed under the wheels of a tractor-trailer, or the proper sleep he'd gotten since had left him ill-prepared for a night without it. In the aftermath of all those hours simply lying there, staring at the darkness of the room and watching as shapes slowly started to sharpen in the gradual lightening of the dawn, waiting for morning to come, he wondered how on earth he had made it all these years as a prosecutor feeling like this. Hardly even daylight yet, and already he could feel the dull beginnings of a headache starting to pound an irritating rhythm over his left eye.

By all accounts, it really shouldn't have left him so badly shaken. That was perhaps the most humiliating part of it all. It had been one thing when, for the past fifteen years, he'd lived with the crushing guilt that he might have accidentally shot and killed his own father. But he knew better now, the truth had been discovered in court and the real killer now lay dead in the ground for all his troubles. There was no viewpoint from which anyone could say that the matter hadn't been resolved, and yet _something_ inside him still seemed willing to dredge up these old fears out of nowhere, refusing to let them die. Miles supposed he had never been so naive as to think that the anxieties that had so long plagued him would simply disappear once the statute of limitations on DL-6 ran out; his old fear of earthquakes and refusal to board elevators, after all, still seemed to have stuck around. But that didn't stop him from feeling endlessly frustrated with himself, wanting more than anything to simply get over it and let the matter rest . . . and feeling guilty all over again when he wanted peace for himself, wanted to think of something other than his father or the life that had been deprived from him.

It was his own fault, he thought bitterly, for panicking and wanting to come here in the first place. What had he expected? Of course this place would bring back less than fond memories. Of course the very things he wanted to bury the most would find a way to claw themselves to the surface once again; and he had the strangest feeling that they were about to set a course for unearthing some decidedly unsavory facts about Manfred von Karma himself along the way, too. The man had never been a saint, after all, and if there were things out there he wanted hidden so badly that he'd leave instructions, even in death . . . Edgeworth suppressed a shudder, not wanting to imagine how much worse those misdeeds could possibly have gotten.

Even worse was the thought that Miles himself might very well have been complicit in some of those.

Well, why not? After all, only recently he'd learned that he truly had been involved in forging evidence in the SL-9 incident. Adding more to the pile at this point seemed a given. At first, he thought he'd been angry with Chief Skye, that his trust had been betrayed and she'd tricked him into playing just as dirty as all those rumors about him had always suggested. But he'd given the matter enough thought by now to know where the true blame lied.

_Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death._

Mildly, but as unbidden and unwanted as a family member walking naked across the hallway in full view, a thought raced through Edgeworth's mind: _what is Phoenix Wright doing today, and how is he feeling right now?_ Edgeworth blinked rapidly, as though to clear the idea from his mind, and shook his head for good measure. He liked even less the impulse that he'd initially had to add _"about me"_ to the end of that thought. Why did he care what the lawyer thought of him? Hadn't the reason he'd fled overseas been to avoid facing the man to begin with? With any luck, he'd never hear from Phoenix Wright again — and it seemed all too likely Wright would want little to do with him if he ever were to show his face in America again, anyway.

Wanting more than anything to distract himself before that troubling line of thinking could go any further, Edgeworth got up and started mechanically getting dressed. It was better than simply sitting here in the quiet, with nothing but a certain defense attorney on his mind.

* * *

Franziska knew by the view outside her father's office window that it could only have been a matter of minutes since she'd first entered the room, but it felt more like she'd spent hours here combing the bookshelves for any clues. The wall behind his desk was lined with thick legal textbooks, all precisely the sort of pretentious, leather-bound tomes one might expect a wealthy prosecutor with money to burn to display. None of them had gathered any dust; the cleaning staff must still come around and clear things up from time to time, she expected. She wondered vaguely who was paying them for their efforts — that money certainly wasn't coming out of her pocket. Her older sister, Anja, perhaps — she had never dared to think of their papa as anything less than a hero, and had been spoiled by him for years for her loyalty. And now her seven-year-old son knew nothing but comfort and happiness. Neither of them had known what it was like to grow up under Manfred von Karma's thumb after Mama had died. Franziska supposed she'd never stop hating Anja just a little bit for that.

Yet, she supposed she was just as much a fool as they. Wasn't she here, after all, doing his bidding, even after he'd died? What hold could he possibly have on her any longer? Why did she still long for a dead man's approval so much?

Franziska snarled and began looking through the books again with renewed frustration. After a short time, her efforts were interrupted by the sound of the office door creaking open once again. Though she knew it could only be one person, she still gave a start and whirled around, for a fleeting instant imagining that she were a child again and it would be her father waiting for her there in the doorway. _Tut mir Leid, Papa! I'm sorry! I shouldn't have been in your office without permission!_

Before the frantic apologies could fall from her lips, she relaxed, pressing her lips into the usual hard, distasteful line across her face. It was Miles Edgeworth standing in the door, not her father, and he looked rather less frightening than the former. There were light purple bruisings forming under his eyes, as though he'd been recently punched in the nose — before she could wonder who had gotten such an honor and congratulate them for their excellent aim, she realized they were shadows of exhaustion rather than the beginnings of a black eye. Sleep deprivation, just as he'd suffered when they were children, though he didn't seem to know she remembered that.

"You look a fright, Miles Edgeworth," Franziska greeted, glad for the confidence that warmed her tone, the teasing smirk that curved up at the corners of her mouth and painted over the momentary fear she'd experienced just at the memory of her father. That little girl was gone, and that carefully-constructed façade was up once again. "Was your old bedroom not to your liking?" she asked with false, mocking sweetness.

Edgeworth was in no mood for banter this morning. "Yes, well, forgive me if I can't sleep soundly in the house of my father's murderer," he retorted, in such a flat tone of voice that Franziska nearly wanted to turn her back on the conversation entirely; she hadn't expected the rare moment of transparency. He so scarcely ever spoke of his father's death, and never with such frankness.

She held her ground, though, and regarded him calmly, even if the sardonic, haughty look on her face melted into something more serious. "Foolish fool," she sighed, with a shake of her head. "You say all that, and yet you still will not give me a clear reason why it is you chose to come here in the first place. I'm rather inclined to believe you simply like to emotionally torture yourself whenever you get too bored and comfortable someplace."

"What are you doing awake so early, and in your father's office of all places?" Edgeworth neatly sidestepped her question, moving farther into the room and gesturing briefly to the bookcases behind her. "Something in there you're looking for?"

On any other day, she wouldn't have allowed him to get away with it. For a moment or two, she debated reminding him that he hadn't given her an answer, her eyebrows raising in the way they usually did before a quarrel. Her hands came to rest sternly on her hips, and after a beat or two, she sighed again, this time more from exasperation than anything else. Prideful fool. Always acting as though he knows what he's doing, and failing all the while to see that the rest of the world knows he isn't as impenetrable as he makes himself out to be.

She let him have his victory, this once. Next time she vowed not to be as forgiving. "Papa mentioned in his . . . instructions that he wanted me to look into a certain case of his. From many years ago, before either of us were born, I would imagine. One of his first, involving some elected official or another." She paused, glanced thoughtfully at the rows of books, and said, "I thought I might find the answers here. It would have been too simple for him to tell me where they were located, I suppose."

Franziska saw the disapproval flit quickly across Edgeworth's face before he could school his expression into neutrality.

"What?" she snapped, immediately on the defensive.

"Have you _truly_ so little self-respect that you will continue to let this man run your life, even from beyond the _grave_, Franziska?" Miles looked as if he were trying for his usual frosty courtroom posturing, but his face was so tired and drawn that he couldn't quite manage to keep the emotion from his eyes. The chill in his tone didn't match at all with the look on his face, so close to pleading, so alien an expression on him. "I thought better of you."

Her temper flared, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of an argument. "This is the last debt I owe to my papa, Miles Edgeworth," she replied smoothly. "I will see it paid, and then I can get on with the rest of my life. Preferably far away from you, if this is how you Americans choose to conduct yourselves."

He rolled his eyes, the expression so surprisingly childish and petulant that it reminded her of all the times they'd stood in this house growing up, arguing over some small annoyance or another. She supposed, deep down, she'd always see him as the brother she grew up with — irritating as brothers could be sometimes.

"And you're just going to let it all get buried, then, are you?" he said, in a voice dripping with such refined disdain that it almost seemed like he _practiced_ it, to get it to be that effective. "Every misdeed he's ever done in his lengthy professional career, every gross miscarriage of justice he's carried out that put innocent people behind bars or worse. How am I not shocked in the _least_ that it matters so little to you?"

"Need I remind you that he _raised_ us on those misdeeds?" Franziska hissed back, unsure why she was suddenly leaning forward and practically whispering, as if the topic they'd suddenly broached were too sensitive even to discuss in private, as if someone hidden in the shadows might be listening in at any moment. "Every technique that Papa employed in his work, he taught us to use in ours. There have already been countless rumors about you, as I hear it. If these other files were ever to see the light of day, coupled with the Hammond case? It's not his memory I'm concerned with keeping unblemished — I couldn't care less if my papa's name is tarnished! _Our_ careers would be finished, as well — mine before it had scarcely gotten started."

"My career?" Edgeworth echoed blandly, his expression dubious. "Is that really what's got you so worried?"

"Yes, you foolish fool! Stop making me repeat myself! Now are you going to help me with this or not?"

"I think not," was his quick, smooth response. "I've had rather enough of covering things up, no matter how poorly they might reflect on me in the end. And I suppose I've realized something I think you've yet to discover for yourself. There are far worse things to lose than a reputation or a career."

And he left her to search for the files alone.

* * *

Phoenix Wright didn't know why he hadn't thrown the note away yet.

He'd read it so many times that the ink had begun to smudge on the crinkled page, the lines from where it had been folded and unfolded and stuffed into Phoenix's pocket now losing their sharp creases and becoming frayed at the edges. Some small part of him knew that he ought to throw it away, but he'd long since stopped listening to the logical side that usually dictated things. As pathetic as it was, he needed some last connection to the friend he'd finally reunited with after all these years, needed the words, no matter how devastating they were — because at least they proved that everything up until now had been real.

Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death.

Just one sentence, and yet it was enough to inspire so many feelings that Phoenix thought he might burst from them. These days, he vacillated most often between grief and raw, deep hurt, the kind of anger that couldn't be quelled no matter how many of his friends tried to comfort him with calming words or company. He didn't think he'd ever stop being furious with Edgeworth — every time that the anger threatened to ebb, he felt guilty for it, as if not clinging to that emotion was the same thing as forgetting his old friend entirely. Miles had been so close, so close to figuring everything out for himself and starting on a new path. And now, to just throw that all away, and for what? Nothing but his own pride?

And he still couldn't bring himself to hate the man for what he'd done.

But he wished he could.


End file.
